All previously releasedDragon Agetitles have introduced new companion characters as post-launch as DLC add-ons. Fans that dislike the practice of paying for additional party members are in luck after Dragon Age Creative Director Mike Laidlaw confirmed to OXM on April 10 that there will be now DLC characters ever released for Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Laidlaw announced that the upcoming third entry to the series will launch with nine companion characters in total and now other party members are planned to be added. The developer revealed that, in order for a future companion to have all of the proper in-game dialogue prompts it would have to have snippets of code already placed inside the game. Otherwise, these characters wouldn’t interact with players in the same manner as the existing nine characters.

The dilemma with this is Bioware would have thus had to ship the game with placeholder coding for any prospective character that would have been added through future add-ons. Releasing DLC that relied on content that was already in the base game could be viewed as on-disc DLC. Since the developer didn’t want to risk a debate on the prospect, they have simply decided not to add party members via DLC.

While most are relieved that they won’t have to pay for in-game companions within the game. Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider offered his opinion on the matter via the Bioware Forums on Thursday. Gaider reminded fans that the announcement of now DLC characters also means that they will never get a new companion experience inside Dragon Age: Inquisition outside the base game. Since the gameplay of Dragon Age series is largely party-based, that means one of the central aspects of the game will never receive new content as Gaider explained with the following statement.

Which, of course, also means "no new party members, period".

As an example: if Shale hadn't been completed in DLC, Shale would simply have never existed insofar as the fans are concerned. Perhaps some people are happier with that, I'm not sure. All I'm saying is that there are two sides to every coin.

Dragon Age: Inquisition launches this fall on Xbox One, PS4, PC, Xbox 360, and PS3. Bioware has thus far confirmed four of the games nine companions. The developer plans to reveal a new character each month so a new party member is scheduled to be announced soon.

Share this article

David is a video gaming expert. After running a successful gaming website and playing games for over 20 years, he's here to keep you updated all console news. He is an artist by trade and appreciates art in all media, especially games.